


Subjugation

by mtjester



Series: Insurrectionbent [9]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, M/M, Master/Slave, Slavery, Subjuggulators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:10:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtjester/pseuds/mtjester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Imperial drones are due to pay Gamzee a visit, but he doesn't have the redrom genetic material he needs to avoid punishment.  The Grand Highblood take it upon himself to ensure that Gamzee has a pail ready, whether he likes it or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the events of [Insurrection for Desperate Dreamers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/629667/chapters/1138507)
> 
> **Please pay attention to the archive warnings.**

The Grand Highblood rose up from his painted throne to greet Gamzee.  “My righteous invertebrother, you bring with you the will of the mirthful messiahs,” he incanted, bowing his heads.

“Stop that motherfuckin’ noise and tell me why all you called me.”

A smile twitched on the Highblood’s lips.  “The drone mother fuckers will soon come to collect the buckets containing your holy seed.  Your black pails have been filled, but what of your red one?”

Gamzee stiffened.  “What business is that to you, mother fucker?”

The Highblood smirked.  “There is no blasphemous mother fucker what would dare to deny your born mother fuckin’ place next to the capricious minstrels in their wicked tent at the dark carnival to come.  You speak with the tongue of the messiahs, you think with their mind, and no mother fucker knows the mysteries of the harshwhimsies better than you.  It is so that you as the prophesized ninja of the holy ruckus shall prepare the way for the minstrels what will bring up the Vast Honk among us,” he said, looking down at Gamzee.  “It is my mother fuckin’ job, therefore, as the humble servant of the mirthful messiahs, to ensure that you do not get your holy ass culled.  I will ask again: what of your red pail?”

Gamzee didn’t answer.

“So you have none,” the Highblood said.  “So it shall be that you, the holy ninja of prophecy, shall filleth your mother fuckin’ bucket with the one for whom the good mother fuckin’ messiahs have made you all aflushéd, ay mother fucking men.”

“And what if I mother fucking refuse that offer?”

“It is not an offer, my descendent, but a mother fuckin’ fact.  No culling drones will be having your holy head for the sake of the lowblooded whore.  If it is true that you will take no other mother fucker, then the lowblood shall serve the purpose he exists to serve.  His mother fuckin’ destiny is to fill your pails.”

Gamzee bristled.  “You’re the sick mother fucker what made him a mother fucking pail slave,” he snapped.  “There’s no destiny up in that mother fucking shit.”

“I did it for you,” the Highblood replied, his smirk widening.  “It is in his mother fuckin’ ancestry to transcend his base class, as could only been willed by the mirthful messiahs in their wisdom for the pleasure of your holy bulge.”

“I won’t mother fucking shit on my bro like what you do.”

“Must I help you form your much-desired bond with the rustblood?” he asked, a wicked glint entering his eyes.  “If it so please you, I will _instruct_ you to the proper end of this blasphemous mother fuckin’ relationship you cling to.”

Gamzee glared at him, expressing his displeasure through the pressure of his chucklevoodoos, which thickened the air until the room pulsed with a nightmarish fever.  The Highblood’s attendants shivered and sank back, but the Highblood himself remained unfazed, looking down at him with a smirk still sitting on his lips.  Someday, he knew Gamzee would become more powerful than him, but as it was he had lived hundreds of sweeps longer and had perfected abilities Gamzee was only discovering he had.  He looked forward to the day when Gamzee took his rightful place ringleading their righteous bloodcircus, surpassing him and unleashing upon the universe horrors the like of which it had never known.  Until then, he would have to push and prod him into accepting his unique role in their religion. 

“What is your decision, my wicked ninja?  Shall I tutor you on how to treat what mother fuckin’ belongs to you?” he asked.  “Or maybe you don’t want the mother fucker anymore, and I should give him to fill his lowly pail with a more mother fuckin’ appropriate pailbitch?”

Gamzee continued to glare at him, but the Highblood knew he had won.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated M for sexual content. If this makes you uncomfortable, feel free to skip to the next chapter.

Gamzee met Tavros’s smile with a grim expression, alerting him early that his visit wasn’t going to be enjoyable, but it wasn’t until the Highblood slipped in after him that Tavros understood the seriousness of the situation.  He looked at Gamzee with a question written on his face as the Highblood crossed the room to the shelves that held his pailing accessories.  The Highblood grabbed an empty pail, strolled back to Gamzee, and, shoving the pail into Gamzee’s gut, whispered something into his ear, his eyes fixed on Tavros.  A sinister smile crept onto his lips as he passed Gamzee and slipped out, leaving them alone.

Gamzee looked down at the pail cradled in his arms, standing silently in the middle of the room.  Tavros watched him nervously.  Finally, Gamzee moved, dragging his feet as he walked to Tavros.  He set the pail down, starting as it clanked against the floor, and, after a tiny pause, sat heavily on the bed.

“Gamzee?” Tavros asked when he didn’t speak.

“We got one mother fucking hour to be about filling up this mother fucking pail before Kurloz comes back,” Gamzee said.  A blush snuck up Tavros’s cheeks and he dropped his eyes to his hands.  They sat silently for a few minutes.

Tavros finally glanced back up at Gamzee and cleared his throat.  “Well, uh,” he said, “I guess, then, we should probably...uh...we should probably do...that.”

“Probably, yeah.”

“And we, uh, probably should...before he comes back.”

“Yeah.”

“So...”

But Gamzee made no move to initiate anything.

If Tavros had understood the nature of Gamzee’s hesitation, he may have thought twice before reaching over and placing his hand on Gamzee’s clenched fist.  He had no reason to suspect anything but nerves in Gamzee’s tension.  Gamzee didn’t blame him for that. He had taken great pains to keep Tavros ignorant of the torment he suffered because of him, and he tried to ignore the painful beating of his heart as Tavros stroked his knuckles with his thumb in an innocent attempt to comfort him.

Tavros didn’t know about the days Gamzee spent holed up in his respiteblock without food, afraid to sleep for the severity of his nightmares, staring at the severed heads he had begun to collect compulsively.  On days like those, Gamzee’s broken think pan could hook onto Tavros’s smallest comments or simplest gestures and turn them into something monstrous to fuel his rage, which had become so hard to control that even the safest thoughts became dangerous.  In his worst episodes of insanity, the image of Tavros was warped beyond recognition beneath the pressure of his unrequited feelings and the constant assurances of his peers that Tavros was meant to someday be his property, a troll-like object that existed to be used and abused and disdained.  Destroying, refiguring, and trying desperately to protect Tavros’s fragile image in his mind had quickly spiraled into an obsession for Gamzee, who, in the privacy of his respiteblock, sometimes oscillated between the debilitating emotions of pity and hate so violently he lost all sense of reality.

It was often during those periods that Gamzee visited his black lovers who he carelessly abused in a vain attempt to channel his rage.  The fact that Gamzee had never filled a pail without violence was weighing on him heavily now, as Tavros stroked his hand to comfort him.  He felt how delicate the situation was, and it frightened him.  He could easily lose control.  It wouldn’t take anything at all. There were hundreds of tiny triggers that could excite the voices that plagued him, so many little things that could break the fragile hold on his sanity he desperately maintained when he was with Tavros, and Tavros didn’t know better.  He had never let Tavros know better.

It frightened him horribly how real Tavros felt sitting next to him, on the brink of an act he had only dreamt of consummating.  It frightened him almost as much as his instability that parts of him were excited about what he knew was coming.  A huge part of him was tight with anticipation, and he knew that, theoretically, he wanted this badly.  But his heart twisted against those desires.  It was wrong, he thought.  It was exactly how Kurloz wanted it to be: an act of dominance and submission, forced and unnatural and entirely one-sided.  This was him greeting Tavros as a pail slave, not as a friend and certainly not as a lover.

There was too much at stake to bastardize his relationship with Tavros.  He was the last thing keeping Gamzee grounded.  He was the only thing that kept him from succumbing to the seduction of power offered to him by the hapless purple bloods who revered him, the only thing that kept him disillusioned with Kurloz’s gruesome take on their religion and role in society, and the only thing attaching him to the life he had on Alternia, which was so much better than the bloody, lonely life he was living now.  He was the only person left who cared for Gamzee for who he really was, truly, loyally, and unconditionally.  He was Gamzee’s last real friend.

And it made Gamzee nauseous to betray him like this.

“Gamzee,” Tavros said, startling him.  Gamzee glanced at him, careful to keep his expression even and his eyes curtained behind his hair.  Tavros was watching him, looking concerned.  “Are you...okay?”

“Yeah, brother,” he lied.  “I was just all thinking about how to start up this rude act.”

Tavros’s eyes widened.  “Um...have you...done this before?” he asked, suddenly looking rather flustered.

Gamzee smiled at his concern.  “Don’t you be all motherfuckin’ worried about me, bro, I’m not new to this.”  The smile slipped as he realized what he’d said.  He felt worse for mentioning his black escapades to Tavros, and at perhaps the worst possible time, but Tavros seemed relieved. 

“Oh, okay, that’s...good, I guess.  I don’t think I’d be a good, um...first time.”  He laughed nervously and fell silent.  With some disappointment, Gamzee noticed he wasn’t stroking his knuckles anymore.

A few more precious moments passed, eating away the hour they had before the Highblood’s return.  Gamzee was acutely aware of the passing time.  He knew that they should start soon, because it would be much worse if they waited for Kurloz to come back.  But he knew it was his place to initiate the contact, and he was having a hell of a time with that responsibility.

“Gamzee...” Tavros said again, this time a strained note sneaking into his voice.  Gamzee sighed and shifted towards him, preparing himself, but when he looked up, he lost his resolve.

“I just don’t know, brother,” he said, dropping his eyes to their hands.  “I don’t know if I can be about kicking this shit all like this.”

“Um...should I...do something for you?” Tavros asked.  Gamzee’s internal organs froze, and he shook his head.

“No.  No, brother.  No.”

“Oh, uh...okay...but...” Tavros said, his words trailing away.  Gamzee could hear something hurt in his voice, and to his distress, Tavros began to withdraw his hand.  Realizing he had been too forceful, he gripped Tavros's hand before it could get away from him.

“Wait, bro, these nerves aren’t about you,” he said.  “It’s not ‘cause I don’t like you or some shit like that.  I just don’t want to be all motherfuckin’ using you like what Kurloz does.  This don’t feel like how it’s supposed to.”

Tavros looked at him, some surprise evident on his face.  To emphasize his point, Gamzee twined his fingers with Tavros’s, but he kept his eyes lowered.

“So, uh...you...you want to be more, uh...personal, about this?” Tavros asked.

Gamzee felt a shiver trill down his body, but he couldn’t read the uncertainty in Tavros’s voice as a good or a bad thing.  Was the idea that he might want something more personal okay, or was adding a flushed dimension to an already strained situation too much?  He wanted to assure him that, if it were his decision, this would be a very personal thing, that he didn’t mean to make it happen like this, with neither of them having any say in the matter.  He wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault he was propositioning him like a prostitute.  He wanted to give him a choice.  He wanted him to want it.  Briefly, he wondered if there would ever be a time when Tavros could have the chance to make this choice, when he could do this simply because he wanted it.

A voice floating from the back of his mind whispered that once he killed Kurloz and took Tavros as his own, he could let him want it.  The possessiveness of the thought sent another shiver down his spine, but it was the kind of cold shiver that took his thoughts to places he didn’t want them to be, especially not right now.

He jumped as he felt Tavros slide a little closer to him and brush his fingers against his jaw.  He looked up, shocked.  Tavros was blushing, apparently unused to acting so bold, and he glanced away when Gamzee made eye contact.  Gamzee continued to watch him, the surprise planted firmly on his face as Tavros fidgeted, his fingers still resting on Gamzee’s jaw line.  After a second, he ran his fingers up to Gamzee’s temples and back through his hair, setting his forehead against Gamzee’s, his eyes flashing uncertainly to Gamzee’s eyes and away and back again.  Gamzee stiffened as Tavros's lips touched his, but as Tavros pulled away in response to his discomfort, Gamzee squeezed his hand and brought his other hand up to Tavros's neck.  Bracing himself mentally, he coaxed Tavros back into the kiss.

It all felt rather surreal.  Tavros was a fabulously good kisser, which took Gamzee by surprise even though it made good sense in the context of his lifestyle, and there was an element of tenderness he had never experienced with any of his black partners.  He was nervous and found himself completely unable to relax.  A section of his mind was constantly chanting _be gentle, be kind_ , afraid that at any second he would get caught up in a fit of passion and fall into the barbaric habits he had developed in his black romances.  Tavros wasn’t expendable like the rest of them.  He didn’t need any more scars or bruises.  He needed to be treated well.  And Gamzee had long since fallen out of the practice of treating people well.

Tavros leaned back, coaxing Gamzee onto the bed.  Gamzee felt the shiver trill down his spine again as Tavros adjusted himself into a position of submission, creating the need for Gamzee to get in closer.  Gamzee’s nerves were exploding as he moved into a more overtly sexual position, the strain of exerting control over himself clashing with the tenderness of Tavros’s kisses and uncertain touches.  He felt Tavros relaxing into the motions as he leaned over him, kneeling between his legs, bracing himself with one arm while he cradled Tavros’s head with the other.  He was allowing Gamzee more give, opening himself so naturally to Gamzee’s advances that neither of them noticed the quick increase in their pace.  Gamzee pulled himself closer and pushed Tavros down onto his back, fumbling at the buttons of his shirt as he moved to nip and lick at his neck.  Tavros was stroking his hands across his back and shoulders, messaging him in a casually seductive way that was foreign to Gamzee but completely welcome.  Gamzee reached the last button and spread the shirt as he ran his hands up Tavros’s bare torso.  His breath hitched as his fingers traced over unnatural ridges, and he looked down at the scar that matched the scar on Tavros's cheek, drawn across a large portion of his chest.

With a flash of panic, he realized himself.  He had allowed his mind to relax, releasing his strained hold on the dark voices that were always chanting in the back of his mind, just enough to hear them whisper unintelligibly to his subconscious.  They rose to a murmur as Gamzee looked at his sign on Tavros’s chest, edging his physical desire with the sharp, cold impulse to subjugate and possess.  His motions had become too forward, his posture too aggressive, and his hands too forceful.  And Tavros was allowing it.  He froze as he realized that this was what they had both been conditioned to do. He had grown accustomed to dominating his lovers, hurting them and using them as he saw fit, and Tavros was used to being dominated, hurt, and used.  He removed his hands from Tavros’s body and sat up.

“Is...something wrong?” Tavros asked as Gamzee looked down at his trembling hands.  He had allowed himself to get too excited, and he could already feel the darker parts of himself responding greedily to his excitement, pulling and clawing at the fabric of his sanity for expression in his passion.  It couldn’t happen like this.  He didn’t have the control. 

But it had to happen.  It _had_ to happen before Kurloz came back.  He let his face fall into his hands, feeling lost again in his inability to repress the blackness in himself.  Only Tavros could make him feel this way, he realized, feeling Tavros sit up and hover in front of him, trying to look at his face.  Only Tavros made him want to be who he used to be, and only Tavros could force him to realize how impossible that was now.  Tavros was stealing up his happiness just as much as Kurloz ever had.  He glared at him from between his fingers, feeling a stab of hatred.

To his horror, he saw Tavros flinch, the color of his face paling slightly.  He checked his glare and hid his eyes again.  He was losing control.  He was losing control _fast_.

He inhaled slowly, then exhaled.  Inhaled, then exhaled.  Trying to make his mind blank, thinking back to Alternia, remembering the feeling of miracles and beautiful colors and the parts of himself he had lost in his transition to adulthood.  Remembering Karkat and imagining what he might say, which somehow always helped.  Remembering Tavros, without scars and full of hope. 

Hope was something Tavros gave him that Kurloz couldn’t give.  Tavros had a way of tormenting him, and perhaps he was guilty of stealing his happiness, but unlike Kurloz, he could give it back.  Tavros could promise him a way back to everything he used to love.  Maybe he couldn’t give him the paradise he had always hoped for, but he could give him somewhere other than the Subjugglator ship, which could offer him nothing but violence and anger.  It was his job to get them there, Gamzee reminded himself.  It was his job to get them to their new paradise, and then Tavros would make it real for them.

He tensed when he felt Tavros’s hands rest gently on his shoulders, and he opened his eyes.  Tavros was behind him, pressing into the muscles of his shoulders with his fingers, slowly and carefully messaging his back.  Gamzee stared ahead of him, concentrating on the relaxing sensation and holding onto the thought of their paradise.  The paradise they would make someday, the two of them together, after they had escaped this hellhole.  He focused all of himself into the thought until it throbbed with the passion of obsession, subordinating his impulses to kill, maim, and destroy to its fulfillment, using it to change his deep, repressed desire to own Tavros into the desire to revere him.  It calmed him, filling him with a nearly religious peace that mirrored his wonder for miracles when he was young.  He breathed deeply and let his hands fall into his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he heard Tavros whisper, and his heart clenched.  Tavros thought he had done something wrong.  That was exactly something he would think, Gamzee thought, feeling a rush of red emotions.  He turned, reaching behind him to slip his hand behind Tavros’s head, and he pulled Tavros forehead to his lips.

“No, brother, you’re motherfuckin’ perfect,” he said.  “But I got these motherfuckin’ issues, bro, and I don’t got the motherfuckin’ ability to get this shit kicked all how it should be done.”

Tavros glanced up at him.  “Issues?”

“Don’t get your worry on about it, bro.”

He looked as though he wanted to press for more information, but he didn’t.  Instead, he asked, “So...what are we going to do?”

“You do it.”

He felt Tavros tense, but he turned around completely and pulled Tavros’s against him in an awkward hug, holding Tavros’s head against his collarbone so that his horn was resting on his shoulder.  “You do it, bro,” he repeated.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know where all I’m coming from.”

“But I’ve, uh, I’ve never...I’ve never done the thing that you’re, uh, proposing I do,” he stuttered, trying to push away from Gamzee, but Gamzee just held him where he was and buried his cheek in his hair.

“It’s not so bad, bro, I can be all about helping you to do it.  It won’t be all that hard for you.”

“Gamzee, I, uh, I definitely don’t think that’s a good idea...I think the best thing would be for us to continue doing it the way we were, which is the way it should be done, in terms of, uh, our respective social positions...”

“I don’t want to be doing it that way.”

“I don’t think I can do it...”

“I believe in you, brother.  My heart is all full up with all my trust in you.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Tavros insisted, squirming against him.  “Gamzee, if the Highblood comes back before we’re, uh, finished, and he sees us like that, he’ll...he’ll definitely be really mad.  I can’t do it, Gamzee.”

“You have to, bro,” Gamzee said, something in his tone stilling Tavros.  He glanced up, trying to see Gamzee’s expression, but Gamzee still had his face buried in his hair.  “I can’t do it, brother.  I can’t be doing the wicked deed with you all that way.  I don’t want to be like that motherfucker, Tavros.  I want to be getting this shit kicked different than how he does.  I don’t want to be getting my motherfuckin’ harsh on at you.  I want you to be all motherfuckin’ happy and feeling good like how you deserve.  I want this action to be so motherfuckin’ red it takes up all the black right the motherfuck out of this room.  But it’s got to be you what does it, brother, ‘cause I don’t have that kind of control in me now.”

He felt Tavros fidget against him, but he didn’t protest.  They sat silently for a moment while Gamzee let Tavros acclimate to the idea, and then Gamzee, still holding Tavros securely against him, let himself fall backwards onto his back.  He released Tavros, squirming into the padded cushions of the bed to make himself comfortable.  Now it was Tavros who was hovering above Gamzee, and a bright bronze blush spread across his cheeks.

“Gamzee, I—what do I—this, uh...” he stammered, looking down at Gamzee.

“You call the shots, brother,” Gamzee replied, making no move to help him.  “But maybe you should be hurrying this motherfucker up some.”

Tavros bit his lip and surveyed the situation, still blushing.  Fidgeting, he made himself more comfortable, and as an afterthought he shrugged off his opened shirt.  Then, he leaned forward, bracing himself above Gamzee, and dipped down for a kiss.  It was the same tentative kiss as before, barely pressing their lips together, but this time Gamzee reached up immediately to encourage him.  Gamzee let him gain confidence on his own terms, barely daring to run his hands along Tavros’s torso, though he desperately wanted to touch him.  Reading his desires, Tavros settled himself against Gamzee’s body, increasing their physical contact.  Still, Gamzee was conservative with his caresses, allowing Tavros to dictate his movements.

The submission was good for him.  Even as they grew bolder with each other, kissing deeper, exploring further, the loss of dominance allowed him to keep the grinding impulse towards subjugation and violence in check.  He felt with a shiver of pleasure something truly affectionate in his carefully maintained docility, and to his surprise he felt his respect for Tavros bloom as he took the initiative to undress both of them.  He kept himself still as Tavros hesitated above his naked body, finally at the cusp of the consummation.  This was when, in his black relationships, he would tear into the other with reckless entitlement, and he felt himself shiver, torn between horror and arousal as he imagined the situation from the receiver’s point of view. 

With Tavros, it was entirely different, and he felt an almost tender sort of heat pulse through him, no less stimulating than his black arousal but far more wholesome.  Tavros was uncertain, even clumsy, as he began heavier foreplay, and Gamzee allowed himself to help him with a small smile.  Tavros murmured apologetically, and Gamzee responded with soothing encouragement, feeling amused and almost domestic about the exchange even as Tavros worked the heat in his lower abdomen into a flush that spread to the rest of his body.  Gamzee closed his eyes as Tavros continued his ministrations, humming low in his throat.  He felt Tavros pepper his chest with kisses, and he let his eyes flutter open.  Tavros was watching him keenly, his own eyes dark with arousal, that bronze blush still faint on his cheeks, and without pausing to think, Gamzee pulled him higher to kiss him, thrumming with a passion devoid of malice or greed.  He and Tavros both fumbled to guide Tavros’s bulge into Gamzee’s nook, groaning as they shivered into the intimate contact.  Tavros was gentle, almost hesitant as they adjusted to each other, and he set a steady, easy pace that Gamzee quickly adjusted to.  Tavros leaned forward against him, panting quietly, and Gamzee reached up to twine his fingers into his hair.  Slowly their pace increased, and as they felt the hot, desperate pressure pulse into their limbs, whimpering with pleasure, they clasped each other and exchanged careless, open-mouthed kisses.  It was Tavros who groped for the pail as Gamzee reached his climax, and he pulled out so Gamzee could spill his genetic material, shuddering through his orgasm.  Gamzee grabbed Tavros, turning him and holding him against his body as he put both his hands to work stroking and caressing him, allowing himself some room for aggression to push Tavros to the edge.  He relished the noises Tavros made and the feel of his slick skin sliding against him, and he muffled Tavros’s moan with a kiss as he reached his orgasm, adding his genetic material to Gamzee’s.

They allowed themselves to stay settled against one another, panting, faces bright with color.  Gamzee set the pail on the floor, and then, kissing Tavros’s collarbone, brought them both back against the padding.  They curled against each other.

“Gamzee, your face paint...” Tavros said, reaching up to touch his face.

“Don’t get your worry on about it, brother,” he replied.  “You don’t have to get your worry on about a motherfuckin’ thing.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Tavros?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay, bro?”

“Um, yeah, I’m fine.  Are you...not?”

“No, brother, I’m pretty motherfuckin’ okay.”

They were silent for a few minutes.

“What all should we be doing now?”

“Maybe we could just, uh, lie here for a little while?”

“That sounds like the motherfuckin’ shit’s bitchtits to me.”

There was another span of silence.

“Um, Gamzee?”

“Yeah, my bro?”

“This, uh—“

The door opened abruptly, and the Grand Highblood sauntered in.  He eyed them where they laid sprawled against each other, still in a state of immodesty, Gamzee’s hand frozen in the act of stroking Tavros’s hair.

“Has the wicked deed been consummated?” he asked.  Gamzee glared back at him, making no move to acknowledge his rude intrusion.  Tavros, on the other hand, sat up and mumbled something.  He began to gather their clothing.

The Highblood’s eyes widened, and in one swift motion he had crossed the room and was gripping Tavros’s hair, holding his head down so he could get a clear view of his back.  There were two faint lines running parallel with his spine between his shoulder blades.  He thumbed the thinning skin, feeling it shift.

He released Tavros and moved to the pailing accessory shelf, grabbing a heavy coil of rope.  “You,” he said to Gamzee, “get the mother fuck out.”

“What the mother fuck is all this about?” Gamzee asked, sitting upright.  The Highblood strolled back to them and dropped the rope on the bed next to Tavros, and, finishing the act of gathering clothing, he threw Gamzee’s pants into his face.

“Out, mother fucker.”

“Not what with all this mother fucking noise,” Gamzee said, shifting towards Tavros, who was looking between them with bewilderment and budding fear.

The Highblood gave them no warning.  Instantly, the air in the room was heavy and cold, and the organs in their chests constricted against the oppressive density of the dark sensations that slammed against them.  A strange light flickered in Tavros’s wide, blank eyes, and he drew a shuddering breath.  “Leave,” he said, an unnaturally sharp bite to his voice.

Gamzee stared at him in shock and then rounded on the Highblood, spewing incoherent obscenities.  “You best be mother fucking stopping this rude shit the mother fuck now!” he shouted, concentrating his own chucklevoodoos against him.  The Highblood glared at him coldly, unaffected by the younger troll’s show of power, his eyes flickering in time with Tavros’s.

“Gamzee...” Tavros said, gasping.  Gamzee turned to him and saw that he was shivering uncontrollably, the hair at his temples damp with a cold sweat.  “Leave.”

Gamzee’s eyes darted between him and the Highblood, growing wide with rage and distress.  Finally, he stood and yanked his pants on, and he was out of the room in seconds.

The Highblood relaxed as Gamzee’s hurried footsteps faded.  He could expect to find mayhem and discord at some point in the very near future unfolding in the fashion Gamzee liked to express his fury, but he wasn’t at all concerned about that.  He rounded on his slave, who was panting and trembling, hunched over at the edge of the bed.  He watched him as he unraveled the rope, a wicked, gleeful smile stretching across his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [If you followed the link at the bottom of IDD chapter 12 to this fic, click here to proceed to chapter 13.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/629667/chapters/1361714)


End file.
